Characters is an expansion suitable for use with all Ticket To Ride games. This expansion consists of a deck of Character cards. Each player chooses a character, granting them a special ability to use during the game.

Instructions: Shuffle the Character cards with no icons on the bottom, along with those bearing the icon of any Ticket To Ride expansion sets in play. Before any other cards are dealt at the start of the game, each player receives two Character cards, places one face-up in front of him or her, and discards the other. Play proceeds as usual.

The rules card and icons card from the deck:

A couple of sample cards from the deck:

Full disclosure: This set reimplements the characters from Mystery Train. Also many ideas here were inspired by Kenneth H (flamethrower49) and other posters in this thread.

Instead of using one character ability for the whole game I was thinking of a variant with having the option after using your character ability once, you can discard the character and collect another one from the draw pile or use him a second time then you must discard it after using it a second time. This just gives variety to the game and cycles through the abilities more to give you more options. What do you think?

I am not keen on the character that removes others' trains, a bit too 'take that' for me so. Have removed that one.

Yes, I encourage you to drop any you don't like.

Platonick wrote:

I will give people three and choose and keep two to get a bit more value from them. Any problems foreseen with that?

No problems, per se, but having two characters can be quite powerful. It may end up overshadowing your regular gameplay. However, I haven't tried it, so I'm curious to see how it goes. Please report back!

Before any other cards are dealt at the start of the game, each player receives two Character cards, places one face-up in front of him or her, and discards the other.

I don't think I like that part. What is the reason to have two cards to choose from if you don't know what other cards you will have? I would prefer everybody having their tickets and two characters. Then you can choose your character and finally your tickets.

As the rule is now stated, it reminds me of that strange rule in the official Europa 1912 expansion, where you get two long tickets and must choose one or none of them before you get the other tickets. How can you possibly decide what to choose when no other information is known?

Yes, you're welcome to change the rule and allow players to see their Destination Ticket options before choosing their Character. Doing so will make some Characters slightly more powerful, but shouldn't affect balance much as long as you ensure that all players announce their chosen Character before anyone discards Destination Tickets.

Instead of using one character ability for the whole game I was thinking of a variant with having the option after using your character ability once, you can discard the character and collect another one from the draw pile or use him a second time then you must discard it after using it a second time. This just gives variety to the game and cycles through the abilities more to give you more options. What do you think?

This would put it more in line with character/special powers used in Star Trek Catan. There, those cards are face up, as opposed to being in some draw deck.